I am a tea drinker. Love it. Some years back I stopped using energy intensive, dyes in the tag, not fully recyclable, tea bags.
Instead I have about 6 single-serve tea jiggers ($1 each) near the kettle (If friends pop in I make a pot of tea).
I half-fill a jigger with Aussi grown Nerada Loose Leaf tea, put it in the mug, fill it with boiling water, leave about 30 secs, remove and add a dribble of milk.
The used leaves I tap into a bowl. When filled it’s emptied into the garden or the worm farm. Either place, the worms love it.
I’ve found bags in the garden do not recycle quickly.
Some bags not at all.
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Okay, now that we’ve all voted and given our tea drinking preferences perhaps you can let us know what the point of it all is!
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A teabag user, I allow my teabags to dry out, cut them open and put the used dry tea into a jar. The cut empty bags go in the rubbish with the string after being cut in half, the paper/cardboard tag goes to recycling bin.
The contents of the Tea jar are sprinkled on pot plants and in the garden.
My mother always emptied the teapot onto her Parsley - a fabulous crop always bountiful.
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Something is a-brewing…
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Yes, I dunk the bag.
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By the way, after I bought this house in 2010 and moved here in 2011, I noticed that some tea bags would break down in the compost bin (as expected), but surprisingly most would just stay the same for years. I contacted some manufacturers and found that they use "plasticisers’ to seal the bags. I wrote up my findings, which has now become this very useful blog post to which I always refer when I want a cup of tea and only tea bags are available: https://www.implasticfree.com/why-you-should-switch-to-plastic-free-tea-bags/
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After going through Lymphoma, I was keen to learn more about it. I am not saying that tea bags caused it, but apparently they do have solvents in the bag itself. I only drink leaf tea. Disappointly, the local Aldi doesn’t sell leaf tea anymore and the other shops seem to be cutting down on leaf tea.
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Choice has a detailed discussion on what tea bags are made from, how they are sealed and which types of bags are safe to compost. Only some bags are made using plastics. Bags may use for sealing PLA which is safe and compostable, others use metal staples or a cotton fibre stitch. There are also some which use food-grade polypropylene for sealing, and risk micro plastics.
Reading the choice article offers further clarity in response to the following posted comments.
And
Consider that over time manufacturing practices change. It’s impossible to generalise. Practices differ between products and brands.
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Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) doesn’t degrade in my compost bins. I suspect it is “compostable”, by which they mean it is industrially compostable, not home compostable.
In order to make life easier, I only buy loose-leaf for home consumption, and only use stapled or stitched bags when out.
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Is there any reason to not place these types of bags in the home compost? We’ve found no major problem in our bins and tumbler.
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True. Staples and stitches break down, which is nice, but to me it’s just making rubbish without any need to make rubbish.
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We’ve a wood heater; I remove the string and label and dry the used bags which are then placed in a glass jar with a small amount of kerosene - diy firelighters.
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